I got back from a nice time at the S.P.A.C.E. (Small Press and Alternative Comics) convention yesterday in Columbus, Ohio. I brought six copies of my movie “Funeral Home Horror” and wound up selling 4 and trading 1. I also sold a few comics and a copy of a book I compiled on the late shock rocker GG Allin. Even better though the camaraderie was second to none. Can’t wait until next year already! 🙂

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GLAHW Member, Ken MacGregor had a brilliant idea for 2013’s Monster Mash for Literacy Bash – raffle off the opportunity for the winner’s name to become the sole theme of a future Anthology. Several brave souls went into the hat and one emerged victorious.

Thus, Recurring Nightmares was born, and GLAHW is proud to announce the debut of our new series.

Le Blurb:

Seven horror writers are gifted the name of a real person and told to do whatever they want to her. In the seven resulting short stories, Amanda is tortured, terrified and made monstrous; she is killed at least once. She won the right to have this done – and the writers couldn’t wait to unleash their imaginations on Amanda.

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Recurring Nightmares, the Special Raffle Prize of the annual Monster Mash for Literacy Bash thrown by the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers (GLAHW) benefiting the Dominican and Siena Literacy Organizations in Detroit.

So often, we like to think we are rational, loving creatures when unknown even to ourselves, we are just the opposite: mad, cruel, selfish, and lustful. We pray to God and secretly worship the powers of darkness. In my story, “Wet Dreams,” a couple rents a mansion in the country for the summer to mend their troubled marriage. Will they succeed? It all depends what happens after they make love and close their eyes. Yes, in dreams lie salvation, but as Goya wrote, that “The sleep of reason produces monsters.”

An hour later, he lay back naked and basked in the afterglow. Karen herself turned off the lights and snuggled happily against him, both their bodies covered by a single sheet. Like him, she was exhausted and drenched with sweat. He listened to her breathing slow and descend toward sleep.

Mirrors. We’re surrounded by mirrors here.

Eyes closed, he thought of their coupling, entangled bodies, which they had seen reflected from many positions: he above her, then behind, Karen above, and then receiving him sideways. He started to smile but found himself imagining their own images watching them in the shadows like second selves. Who knows, perhaps their alter egos would wait till they slept and then creep into their bodies and possess their souls. And, in the morning, when they awoke…

Where had he gotten such a weird idea? He tried to puzzle it out, but sleep soon stole upon him.

Sometime later he awoke, smelling perfume. Something exotic—jasmine? Whatever it was, it must be his imagination because Karen wasn’t wearing any. But it was so sweet and fragrant, so…

Hello my friends, it’s been a while since we’ve had any visitors down in The Archives.

One of the big horror/haunted attraction conventions, Trasnworld, was held last weekend. Your humble Tombkeeper was not able to attend, but I was able to flip through some catalogs of some companies that other intrepid travelers brought back. If you are ready to start planning your Halloween display now, you might want to check out these sites. Or you could check out the websites so you how much you need to save up.

We haven’t mentioned either of these places before.

The first is prop manufacturer Beyond the Grave Productions (http://beyondthegraveproductions.com). The create quality static props but they are a little on the pricey side.

The other is a local mask manufacturer The Murderforge (http://www.murderforge.com/index.html). The artist does amazing work, creating small masks, half masks, and static props. They are constructed out of a special latex and polyfoam mix which makes them more durable than your average latex mask. The best part? The artist is a local boy who started in his parents’ garage in Dearborn, MI.

We’ll be adding some more websites as the year rolls on. Stay tuned!

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GLAHW is pleased to open submissions for the Annual Anthology. You must be a current member (paid dues for 2014) of GLAHW to submit. If you would like to join, you may pay your dues at any time as long as you do it before you submit.

This year’s theme is Fairy Tales and Myths – open to all cultures and interpretations.

Deadline for stories is June 30, 2014.

For the tl;dr crowd, the theme for 2014 is Fairy Tales and Myths. You can choose from any fairy tale or myth from any culture, just shoot a message on the Message Board so we don’t have multiple visions of the same tale.

All stories for this anthology must be stories based on fairy tales and myths. No Urban Legends will be accepted (we already did that anthology). No other type of stories will be accepted.

Yes we accept Poetry. Poems can be up to fifty lines each.

Please don’t send us sword & sorcery or space opera stories. Tolkien and Lucas have their place, but not here. Also, we don’t accept “fan fiction” which includes anything based on a video game, book, movie or any other creator’s work. Normally we would say here, “If you don’t own the copyright to the characters in your story, we cannot publish your story”, but for this anthology please make sure your fairy tale or myth is in the Public Domain and you aren’t recycling someone else’s theme – like Hansel and Gretel, Vampire Hunters.

Please don’t send us “Slash” or Erotica or anything graphically describing sex. Sex is okay, as long as it’s integral to the story, but don’t over-do it. Don’t use gore for gore’s sake. There are anthologies and digests that would love to read your torture porn, but ERIE TALES is not one of them.

Stories should be between 500 – 5,000 words. This word count is firm. Stories above this word limit will be deleted unread. If you have a story shorter than this, please query.

Please follow proper manuscript format. If you don’t know what proper manuscript format is, please follow this link. Stories not in proper manuscript format will be returned unread.

Stories should be submitted as an attachment in either MS Word (.doc, docx) or Rich Text Format (.rtf)

We already have a cover artist, but we’d love to see your B&W art for the interior. See the guidelines for details, or query

All acceptances will receive one (1) Contributor’s Copy and our humble thanks.